Bending the Rules
by Strawberry Shortcake123
Summary: Rule number twelve says that you should never date a coworker. Director Vance thinks that this rule is being broken by members of Gibbs' team; Gibbs disagrees. Heavily implied Tiva. Oneshot.


Leon Vance sat in his office chair, swiveling slightly from side to side as he waited. His eyes absentmindedly strayed to the television on the wall. It was tuned to ZNN, and they were covering a story from the Middle East. What is was, he didn't know; he expected he would soon, but right now, he needed to deal with something within his own agency.

The door opened, and Leroy Jethro Gibbs came inside, obviously in a rush. "What is it, Leon?"

Vance nodded at a chair opposite him. "Sit down, Gibbs."

"I don't have time to sit down. I've got a case to solve."

This reaction had been anticipated; Gibbs remained near the door, hovering there as if he might dash out any second. Vance cut to the chase. "I came out to the crime scene for a while today. Did you see your agents?"

"Which ones?"

"DiNozzo and David."

"Well, yeah. DiNozzo was bagging evidence; Ziva was taking statements."

The director pursed his lips. "Gibbs."

"What?" Gibbs threw his hands up. "I don't know what you're getting at, Leon."

Vance leaned forward, wearing one of his very stern expressions. "When I arrived at the scene, I saw DiNozzo and David standing off to the side, engaged in a very long, very tight hug."

Gibbs crossed his arms and said nothing.

"I thought you had a rule against co-workers dating. Rule seventeen?"

"Rule twelve," he said automatically, taking a couple of steps closer to Vance's desk. "Tony and Ziva aren't dating."

"Well, it's certainly headed in that direction," Vance said, beginning to get a little frustrated. Gibbs was with these two for hours every single day; how did he not notice this? "You need to stop it before it gets out of hand. I've always agreed with you that relationships are not meant for the workplace."

He wasn't sure why he wasn't getting through to Gibbs. The man went around talking about his rules all the time; why wasn't he enforcing them now?

"Ziva was upset because there was a teenage girl among the victims of the homicide. Her sister died in a suicide bombing at sixteen; it reminded her of that, and it upset her. That's why DiNozzo was hugging her," Gibbs said quietly, patiently… two words that did not usually describe Gibbs.

Vance briefly considered letting it go. Briefly. He quickly decided not to, because this was certainly not the first time he'd noticed something going on between Agents DiNozzo and David. "That was not the hug of a friend, Gibbs. That hug was a lot more."

Gibbs stared out the window at the sunny, warm day. After several moments, he looked back at the other man and shrugged helplessly. "What do you want me to say, Leon? He loves her. She loves him. Not much I can do about it."

The director stared at him. "You think they're in love." It was an incredulous statement, not a question.

"Well, they don't know it yet," Gibbs chuckled. "But yeah. Duh."

For the first time during the conversation, Vance stood up. "Are you saying that you wouldn't _mind _if they started dating?"

"It might cause problems here; I don't know. But I saw what happened to Tony when we all thought Ziva was dead. I saw the lengths he went to in order to get to Somalia and avenge her death. And I see looks pass between them everyday. They've got something special, Leon. When they realize it, I'm not gonna be the one to take it away from them." Gibbs fixed him with a hard stare. "And I trust you aren't, either."

Even though he was technically the boss, Vance knew that you didn't mess with Gibbs when he was protecting his team. If he gave Tony and Ziva permission to date, they were going to date, and there was nothing the director or anybody else could do about it.

Apparently having made his point, Gibbs moved toward the door, but Vance stopped him by asking, "What about your rule twelve?"

With one hand on the door handle, Gibbs turned back around. "There's a new rule, Leon. Rule fifty-one."

"And what does rule fifty-one say?"

"Sometimes, you're wrong."

He opened the door and strode out of the office. It fell shut behind him with a thud, and Vance was left alone to wonder how, exactly, their conversation had turned out that way.

**It's pretty late, and I'm pretty tired, but I hope this turned out okay. Please review and tell me what you thought! Thanks for reading!**


End file.
